17 dead as Qaeda attacks Syria Kurd town: watchdog

A man and a woman stand next to a wall riddled with bullets in the courtyard of a house in the Syrian town of Ras al-Ain on August 3, 2013. Al-Qaeda loyalists attacked a mainly Kurdish town in northeastern Syria sparking fighting in which 17 people were killed, two of them ambulance crew, a watchdog said on Saturday. (AFP/File)

BEIRUT (AFP) – Al-Qaeda loyalists attacked a mainly Kurdish town in northeastern Syria sparking fighting in which 17 people were killed, two of them ambulance crew, a watchdog said on Saturday.

The assault on the strategic border town of Ras al-Ain, from which the jihadists were expelled by Kurdish militia last month, sparked an exodus of civilians into neighbouring Turkey, an activist said.

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The attack on the town was part of a wider offensive by Al-Qaeda against several Kurdish majority areas of northern and northeastern Syria that began on Friday and was continuing on Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Four Kurdish militiamen and 11 jihadists made up the rest of the dead, the watchdog said.